Several years ago, I split a bottle of cheap champagne and chatted with a wild, beautiful, pixie of a woman who happened to be a talented Pro-Domme. This was a few months after the stock market crashed, and Pixie (not her real name) complained that the economy was hurting her business. (So much for sex work as a recession-proof industry!) “I’m lucky if I book one or two sessions a month these days,” she complained, “and a lot of the time the guys don’t even show up.”

My jaw dropped. “Don’t you ask for a deposit?” I asked in amazement.

“Only if it’s something elaborate like an overnight caging scene,” she replied briskly, as if it were an inconvenience she’d become resigned to.

I was shocked. The Pro-Dommes I knew were addressed as “Mistress,” “Goddess,” and “Queen” by their submissives; clients paid hundreds of dollars per hour to worship their feet and drink their pee! At least that’s how it looked from the outside. I was amazed that these supposedly “submissive” men would be so disrespectful to the women they supposedly worshipped. By not showing up, they were not only wasting her time, they were costing her hundreds of dollars of income. And apparently, this wasn’t uncommon.

This was the first time I realized that Domme women, far from being universally respected, are often treated worse than consenting female submissives. It suddenly made sense why I met so few women interested in dominating men for free.

I first stumbled into the BDSM scene in my late teens, and quickly decided my natural identity was switch. My first experiences usually involved me taking control of a boyfriend or male playmate with blindfolds, light bondage, and sensation play. I was a curvaceous, corseted young blonde, and I exuded a sort of natural confidence and dominant presence that drew submissives to me like a moth to a flame. I also enjoyed an intense but all too brief D/s relationship with a beautiful young dominant man who was training under an old guard Leather master. BDSM filled my life with excitement, and my dominant and submissive natures were like two sides of a light and dark coin.

I was deprived of the kink scene for five long years due to a long-term vanilla relationship, and living abroad in a country where kink was buried too deeply underground for me to successfully seek it out. When I moved to Chicago at age 26, I discovered a kink scene bigger than I could have ever imagined, and began the awkward process of trying to carve my niche within it as a female switch. Mistress Cleo Dubois gave me a beautiful word to describe a switch: versatile player. I also like calling myself a “switch bitch” and “powerfluid”. I like powerfluid, because for me, playing doesn’t always have clear boundaries between top and bottom. I find the idea of “flipping” a scene midway to be very exciting, never knowing who really has the upper hand. I love kinky wrestling in particular, because it feels like the physical embodiment of two powerful entities battling for dominance. For me, topping isn’t as much fun if my bottom is totally passive and doesn’t struggle a little bit! I like to challenge my tops, and be challenged by my bottoms, and nothing gets me hotter than taking down a powerful player and bending them to my will.

Most of the female switches I’ve met in the scene submit to men but only top women, or top men as pro-dommes, maybe keeping a slave if they found a well behaved sub. I specifically didn’t want to be a pro-domme because I wanted my dominance to come from a place of my personal desires and fantasies, rather than being scripted by a paying client. I don’t want a slave because I want to be in a relationship with someone who can be my equal outside of our play. But sometimes it seems like my ideals are viewed as alien and bizarre to many people.

Recently, I decided I am actually more interested in topping men than bottoming for them. A great deal of this decision was motivated by a desire for respect and power- not wanting to be viewed as a piece of sexually-available, submissive meat simply because I’m female and unattached. And for the first time in my life, I feel that I have the confidence and creativity to run amazing scenes, the experience to be sadistic yet compassionate top, and the dignity to receive service from a place of self-assured strength.

In the past, I had some ambivalence about topping, because for me, kink is very much sexual. My ability to receive sexual pleasure usually involves penetration, so there’s an element of surrender which can detract from my Dominant role. I have always envied how male tops can use their cocks and orgasms to enforce their dominance- by throat fucking a sub and coming on their face, for example. I can do this to some extent by using my strap-on, but it doesn’t give me the same sexual pleasure. “Queening” or face sitting is commonly popular activity with Fem Dommes and male subs, and while I get off on the element of suffocating someone with my ass, I don’t really get off on receiving oral sex. Sometimes I wonder if it’s something I’m really doing for my own pleasure, or because they enjoy it. I enjoy service topping, but after a while it seems like a lot of these “approved” Femme Dom activities are exclusively dictated by what the submissive wants. And it seems like when I bring up what I truly desire- to inflict pain as a sadist- I am frequently met with replies of “Oh, well, I don’t like pain.” I feel as though these submissives claim to want to “worship” me, but are more interested in treating me as an unpaid Pro-Domme to boss around, than an independent, unconventional dominant who would like to do things a little bit differently.

I can’t help but recall my conversation with Pixie as I struggle to find a male submissive worth my time and energy. Almost every day I receive long, elaborate messages on Fetlife from subs, detailing all the things “I’m going to do to them” before I’ve even met them in person, causing me to feel as if I’ve been non-consensually shoe-horned into their masturbatory fantasy.

Other times, they say “they want me to tell them what to do,” but reject every suggestion of how I’d like them to serve me. One submissive told me he wanted me to “loan him out” to another man while I watched, but gave a laundry list of qualities this hypothetical man must have including washboard abs and a smooth chest (and I was somehow supposed to procure this gorgeous stunt cock for the submissive’s pleasure.) And maybe they want to play dress up in woman’s clothes or get pegged with a strap on, yet they never actually own any clothes or toys of their own- I’m expected to provide all this for them.

I’m having a real problem here. I am a top, and I have bottomed enough to know what male tops generally expect from their bottoms. And you know what? I expect the same from my bottoms. I DON’T expect a double standard. I believe in consent, mutual respect, and trust and negotiation. But I also expect be respected as the top in charge, I would like to get to do some of the things that turn me on within nitpicking and whining, and I’d like to direct the scene without my bottom constantly trying to run the show from below.

Moreover, I’m having the same problems with flakiness that Pixie described years ago. Potential subs will usually show up for a coffee date for screening, we’ll set up a time for a play date, and they simply won’t show up at the scheduled time, at all. No cancellation phone call; no apology. In one case, the sub even blocked me on Fetlife AFTER we’d made plans. I have no problem with a sub changing their mind. I do have a problem with having my time wasted because a sub is too cowardly to be honest with me.

I am deeply confused why these men, who claim to believe in “female supremacy” and want to “serve and please women”, can’t be bothered to actually treat Dommes with the respect they deserve. These men seem so deeply caught up in their selfish fantasies that they end up objectifying dominant women as black leather Barbie dolls who exist solely to fulfill their every submissive whim. And that’s not a game I’m interested in playing.

I have seldom encountered these flakiness issues with Dominant men, and I honestly wonder if the fear of giving up male privilege and power is what causes these male submissives to chicken out and behave erratically. Society socializes men to be dominant. I imagine that submissive fantasies can often be a source of shame and conflicting emotions for powerful men. I’m sure the degrading ways that male submissives are often depicted- open wallets to be drained, human footstools, worthless worms, and so forth- doesn’t help any. It’s okay to explore this kind of intense degradation in play, but it also needs to be understood that male submission can and should be just as valuable and lovely as female submission, and can be sensual, intense, and empowering for both parties. But it does require a pure surrender and vulnerability that may be terrifying for some men.

I am not saying that there aren’t abusive, disrespectful Dommes who mistreat their subs. Nor do I believe that all male submissives are selfish, unreliable jerks. But sometimes I wonder if I will ever find a male partner who can really respect and honor my strength, my profound capacities for both control and surrender, and meet me half way in my quest for mutually fulfilling power exchange? I am really enjoying reading blogs by feminist Dommes like Kitty Stryker, who seek to redefine Femme Dom/Male sub relationships in a way that is more gratifying and respectful for all parties involved. I do believe it can be done. But it may take some patience and hard work to shift
these deeply ingrained paradigms that are ultimately disempowering to Dommes and subs alike.